THIS WEEKEND
As expected by many industry observers, final
weekend figures released on Monday proved
that New Line Cinema's hit comedy Next
Friday was the number one film at the
box office while Miramax's teen romance Down
To You opened below in second place. The
distributor's $8.3M estimate turned out to be far from reality as the Freddie
Prinze Jr. picture actually grossed $7.6M over the Friday-to-Sunday period,
or $700,000 less than Miramax projected. By comparison, New Line's $8.2M
estimate for Next Friday was
off by just $200,000. But of course, the damage was done. With its overly
optimistic weekend estimate, Miramax grabbed headlines in newspapers and
television news programs everywhere on Sunday and Monday when in fact that
publicity should have been given to New Line's Next
Friday.

Overall, it was a sluggish
frame as a deep freeze across much of the United States and championship
football matches made moviegoing a low priority for the public. No film
has reached number one with such a small gross in over twenty months as
low voter turnout at theaters kept national ticket sales mild.

Rapper-turned-actor
Ice Cube pulled in $8M with his raunchy comedy Next
Friday which remained the number one movie
in the land for the second straight weekend. Down 45% from the Friday-to-Sunday
portion of its holiday debut, the New Line title has collected a splendid
$31.8M to date and needed only eleven days to surpass the $27.4M gross
of 1995's original film Friday.
Produced for under $10M, Next Friday looks
to reach around $50M domestically. Though international prospects seem
bleak, the comedy sequel should bring in lots more revenue on home video
this summer and may spawn a third installment of the franchise.

Teen audiences spent
$7.6M on Miramax's Down to You,
a new romantic comedy starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Julia Stiles. Opening
in 1,971 theaters, the film which was not screened for critics averaged
a lukewarm $3,857 per site. The debut for Down
to You was less than half the size of
the $16.1M opening for last year's She's
All That which was another young adult
romance starring Prinze Jr. released at the end of January from Miramax.
Hollywood is more commonly going after young female audiences during the
football frenzy of late January as evidenced by Down
to You, She's
All That, and 1998's Spice
World and Great
Expectations which opened with $10.5M
and $9.6M respectively. Down to You experienced
diminishing returns over the three-day period which indicates the spread
of poor word-of-mouth that may haunt the picture in the weeks ahead.

Universal added 647
more theaters to The Hurricane's
fury and grossed $6.5M to remain in third place. With the help of the additional
playdates, Denzel Washington's Golden Globe winning turn as a wrongfully
imprisoned boxer eased by just 28% giving it $22.9M so far. The
Hurricane's per-theater average of $3,095
was off 50% from last weekend's Friday-to-Sunday figure.

Dropping two spots
to fourth, the blockbuster kidpic Stuart
Little ate up $6.4M in its sixth outing
and has collected $117.1M thus far. Sliding 30% to remain in fifth place
was the Tom Hanks prison pic The Green
Mile with $5.4M boosting its cume to $109.6M.

Galaxy Quest
continued to shine with $4.5M over the weekend giving the Tim Allen comedy
$54.3M to date. Sony's Girl, Interrupted,
which landed Angelina Jolie a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress,
fell a disturbing 47% to $4.3M putting its total at $16.2M. The
Talented Mr. Ripley, which failed to capitalize
on its five Globe nods, dropped 38% and swiped $3.7M from the wallets of
moviegoers lifting its cume to $68.2M.

Buena Vista's boxing
pic Play it to the Bone
sustained a concussion in its first round of national release with a flabby
$3.4M. The Woody Harrelson-Antonio Banderas movie jabbed its way into 1,556
theaters and averaged a poor $2,203 per ring.

Rounding out the top
ten was Angela's Ashes,
starring Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle, with $3.2M in 610 locations.
Produced by Paramount and Universal for $13M, the Alan Parker film averaged
a solid $5,275 giving it the second best per-theater average in the top
ten. Paramount reported that Angela's Ashes
played to an older and more female audience
as expected and its 55% Friday-to-Saturday jump could bode well for longevity.

Three films dropped
out of the top ten over the weekend. With $2.9M, the Disney/Pixar smash
hit Toy Story 2
has raised its domestic gross to a mighty $231.2M. That puts the Golden
Globe winner for Best Picture - Musical or Comedy at number 20 among the
all-time domestic blockbusters surpassing
1997's The Lost World.
Toy Story 2
reunites the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen whose latest live-action
films continued to perform well in the top ten this weekend.

With NFL conference
finals distracting sports fans this weekend, Any
Given Sunday retreated a hefty 49% to
$2.4M putting its cume at a solid $70.2M. The $55M Warner Bros. release
should finish its season with $75-80M making it one of the highest-grossing
films ever for both Al Pacino and director Oliver Stone. For the former
Tony Montana, Sunday
ranks number three overall after the 1972 masterpiece The
Godfather ($135M) and 1990's Dick
Tracy ($104M). Stone will end up with
his second biggest grosser ever behind 1986's Oscar champ Platoon
($138M).

MGM's sci-fi thriller
Supernova imploded
by tumbling an alarming 57% in its sophomore frame to $2.5M putting its
ten-day total at a mere $10.2M. The $65M failure should end its disappointing
run with roughly $15M.

Elsewhere, Sony expanded
its romantic drama The End of the Affair
into over 600 theaters and grossed $1.7M. The multiple Golden Globe nominee
averaged a mild $2,415 getting lost in a sea of acclaimed pictures expanding
in January. Buena Vista fared no better with the Tim Robbins-helmed Cradle
Will Rock which widened again grossing
just $593,899. Cumulative totals for Affair
and Cradle
stand at $5.1M and $1.9M respectively.

With three Golden Globe
wins for Best Picture - Drama, Director, and Screenplay, American
Beauty grossed $431,045 (off 16%) pushing
its stellar cume to $73.3M. DreamWorks distribution head Jim Tharp noted
that the critical and commercial hit will be reissued in mid-February after
Academy Award nominations are announced.

Box office grosses
for other Golden Globe nominees include $32.6M for Man
on the Moon, $26.6M for The
Insider, $20.2M for Being
John Malkovich, $15.5M for The
Cider House Rules, and $15.1M for Magnolia.

Compared to projections,
both Down to You and
Play it to the Bone
debuted a few notches below my respective forecasts of $11M and $6M. Next
Friday and The
Hurricane came in close to my $9M and
$6.5M predictions. Angela's Ashes opened
near my $3M projection.

Take this week's NEW
Reader Survey on your choice for Best Actor
at this year's Oscars. In last week's survey, readers were asked whether
they thought Scream 3
would gross at least $100M domestically like the first two in the series
did. Of 3,885 responses, 57% said yes while 43% voted no.

Be sure to read the
Weekly Rewind column which reports on the current
opening weekend records for each month of the year. For a review of Angela's
Ashes visit The
Chief Report.

The top ten films over
the weekend grossed $53.1M which was down 7% from last year when Varsity
Blues remained on top with $10.6M, and
down 28% from 1998 when Titanic spent
its sixth week at number one with $25.2M.

Be sure to check back
on Thursday for a complete summary, including projections, for next
weekend when Isn't She Great
and Eye of the Beholder
both open.

This column is updated three times each week
: Thursday (upcoming weekend's summary),
Sunday (post-weekend analysis with
estimates), and Monday night (actuals).
Source : EDI, Exhibitor Relations. Opinions expressed in this column are
those solely of the author.